Luck wasn’t on the Spartans’ side Saturday, but that certainly wasn’t due to a lack of spirit displayed by students such as Ko Maeda.
He joined 4,700 people gathered at Breslin Student Events Center to watch the game - but he came with green and white face paint and a clown wig.
“I did this last year too and we won, so I had to come here again so we’d win,” said Maeda, a political science graduate student from Japan. “When I came here, I didn’t know what March Madness was.”
Bryan Budd didn’t care that the Spartans were playing more than 600 miles away in Minneapolis.
He wanted to fire up the crowd at Breslin by waving his arms and shouting “Defense” and “Let’s go State” while watching the Final Four semifinal game against Arizona on Spartanvision.
“We need to keep the crowd up and in the game,” the no-preference freshman insisted. “We are not there, but we can still support the team.”
Camryn Jackson’s 8th birthday celebration at Breslin was spoiled a bit by the Spartan loss, as MSU fell to the Wildcats 80-61.
However, Camryn has still seen the Spartans compete in the Final Four three times.
Prior to 1998, seeing MSU in semifinal action was a much less common experience than in recent years.
Camryn, a Lansing resident, cheered every time he saw Spartan great Earvin “Magic” Johnson or the defending national champions on the big screen.
The rest of the crowd would join the ovation.
“MSU is good at basketball, I think they are going to win,” Camryn said shortly after tip-off.
Unfortunately, his predictions didn’t come true.
The No. 1-seed Spartans fell to the No. 2-seed Wildcats, dashing any hopes of back-to-back titles.
Six-month-old Jaden Thelen, of Haslett, clapped along with the “Michigan State Fight Song” and wore an MSU outfit in his first trip to Breslin Center on Saturday night.
The young fan helped his mother, Shannon Thelen, cheer the team on.
“This is definitely a good event for people of all ages,” said Thelen, who insists her son is a future Spartan athlete. “What better to do on Saturday than come here?”
But not everyone came to Breslin just to watch the game. English senior Amy Forbes had a different task.
“People get shouting and then they want ice cream,” said Forbes, who sold cookie ice cream sandwiches and lemon chills at a Melting Moments booth.
Forbes said she wished she could have joined her friends in cheering instead of working. However, she occasionally caught some of the action on the big screen by sneaking around the corner from her station.
“I keep peeking at the score and trying to see what’s going on,” Forbes said.
Spartan support wasn’t just contained to Breslin though, as it also spilled out to all of East Lansing.
A group of fans on Gunson Street watched the game outside in the cold as Arizona began heating up in the second half.
Residents of the house hung a screen from the gutter and projected the game onto it. The gathering had all the trimmings - a block “S” flag, a grill, a foosball table, food and beverages.
Brandon Green, a Lansing Community College business student, was huddled with about 30 others outside the house.
The group had brought a couch and recliner out on the lawn for added comfort.
“Being with friends is better,” Green said. “You get to watch the game in comfort and go to your own bed.”
As the game slipped away, he regretted not traveling to the Twin Cities to support the team - he made the trip to Atlanta last week to witness the Spartans win their third regional title in as many years.
“When I’m there I feel like I give them better luck for some reason,” he said, as MSU was trailing by 11 in the second half.
Lansing resident John Flanagan said he was happy to watch the game with the group of his friends, but had one complaint - other than that MSU’s national championship hopes were slipping away.
“Everybody is happy,” Flanagan said. “Though they could have had this inside - it’s cold out here.”
